Booktrack Raises Another $5 Million, Still Can’t Explain Why Consumers Would Want a Sound Track in an eBook

PW reports that Booktrack has raised another $5 million in a capital funding round led by investments from COENT Venture Partners and Sparkbox Ventures. Counting the $3 million raised last April and in earlier rounds, that brings Booktrack's total capital raise to $10 million.

There's no word on how they plan to use the money, although:

Booktrack CEO Paul Cameron said, “our vision has always been to advance digital publishing and content to connect readers with an exciting and modern may to experience and e-book with a soundtrack.” The company has about 50 publishing deals and offers about 15,000 titles. Cameron claims Booktrack has attracted more than 2.5 million readers to its site.

That store opened in May 2015. The ebooks it sells feature annoying and repetitive soundtracks, and can only be read in Booktrack's apps for iOS and Android or on its website.

I'm one of the many people who has never really understood the appeal of Booktrack's product, and given the limitations of its platform (Booktrack does not distribute to other platforms like the Kindle Store, Kobo, or iBooks, and has a userbase on Android of under 100,000) I was frankly surprised to read this morning that it had raised another $5 million.

Okay, Booktrack is doing something unique; even the Kindle platform lacks soundtracks, but that is probably because consumers don't want it.

What do you suppose they told/promised the VCs to merit the investment?

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Nate Hoffelder is the founder and editor of The Digital Reader:"I've been into reading ebooks since forever, but I only got my first ereader in July 2007. Everything quickly spiraled out of control from there. Before I started this blog in January 2010 I covered ebooks, ebook readers, and digital publishing for about 2 years as a part of MobileRead Forums. It's a great community, and being a member is a joy. But I thought I could make something out of how I covered the news for MobileRead, so I started this blog."

3 Comments on Booktrack Raises Another $5 Million, Still Can’t Explain Why Consumers Would Want a Sound Track in an eBook

If they really have 2.5 million users, that may seem good to investors. However the Android app has under 100k downloads and the iOS app has 17 reviews in the past three months, so I believe there are not that many desktop users.